Biography

I am a poet who lives in Bristol, but I am from Doncaster, where they say poem like this...

'poym'

My inspirations include earwigging on barstools and eavesdropping at bus stops.

I like to tell poems out loud. If you would like to book me to do that, then please get in touch, that'll be lovely.

I am also very experienced in working with young people in schools and youth groups, and am available for poetry and literature workshops of all kinds. I am fully CRB checked with good references, and very responsible and enthusiastic.

I am currently working as a Poet Coach in the south west for Apples and Snakes' national Shake the Dust project, happening this spring summer in schools all over the country. Looksee: www.shakethedust.co.uk

My first small collection, 'Sweat Borne Secrets', is forthcoming from Burning Eye Books in late summer. http://burningeyebooks.wordpress.com/our-poets/

I am the Bristol co-ordinator of national spoken word organisation Hammer & Tongue, and very lovely it is, too.

Along with Liz Greenfield, I organise a regular open mic night called Poetry Pulpit at The Left Bank, Cheltenham Road, Bristol, on the second sunday of every month. It is lovely. We have been lucky to feature such luminaries of the spoken word, literature and music scene as David J, Mimi Thebo, Bethany Porter and Lucy English. There is more information here... http://www.poetrypulpit.com/

and you can have a listen to the kind of wonderstuff that happens every month at Poetry Pulpit right here...

http://soundcloud.com/poetrypulpit/poetry-pulpit-10-medley

We do silly things like this-
http://vimeo.com/33248879

I will next be saying poems here..

Friday 18th May @ WordJam, Brighton Fringe Festival, The Writer's Place, 9-10 Jew Street, Brighton, BN1 1UT.

Saturday 19th May @ Independence Day Festival, Drewqsteignton, Devon.

1th - 3rd June @ Fire In the Mountain Festival, near Aberystwyth, Wales.

8th & 9th June @ Wychwood Festival, Cheltenham.

11th June @ Hammer & Tongue Hackney w/ Andy Craven Griffiths.

16th June @ This is DIY zine launch, Bermondsey.

8-10th August @ Boomtown Festival, Wandering Word Stage.

24-27th August @ Shambala Festival, Wandering Word Stage.


Hurray!

Sometimes I write stories and reads them out...

http://www.route-online.com/authors/sally-jenkinson.html

Here are some nice reviews..

http://www.inpressbooks.co.uk/james_hoggs_review_of_routes_born_in_the_1980s_stories_from_our_socalled_generation_z0375.aspx

http://thelatest.co.uk/7/review-hammer-tongue-annual-showcase

Here are some videos of me saying poems. Some are quite low quality, sorry I'm working on it! Though in the high quality one I look like a moomin so maybe its just as well.

http://vimeo.com/user4005173

Here are some youtube bits...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9mZ7m8NUpg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWBqWvlWJcc&lr=1


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RssP_MFLCZE&lr=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWBqWvlWJcc&lr=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhGDm7w8eHA&lr=1

Here are some audio recordings of me saying poems, if you would like a listen...

http://soundcloud.com/sallyjenkinson

'She's better looking, but I'm more successful' -Nathan Filer


'She looks like she only drinks vodka, and she only eats crisps' -Wilf Merttens


'Incisive, insightful and utterly delightful' -Apples and Snakes

http://soundcloud.com/sallyjenkinson

Samples

Attack from Outer Space

It turns out you can’t watch a supernova from a safe distance,
and it turns out you can’t muster a resistance
from the hiding place behind the kitchen cupboard-
but how could they not look?

Him on the bus.
Her having a bath and a panic.
Them squeezing each other quick
before her parents heard.

Fat blue bombs on the horizon like skimming stones
so strange that no rabbit feet hearts rapped fear on their ribs,
just crackling curiosity filled their bones.

And what did they want?
Would they make homes in our skulls, use
our shadows as duvet covers,
make a lover of our moon?

Soon, although all the bar keeps
were all standing in the street-
Ale thundered gold from all tapped barrels at once.

And although the glaziers
were all gazing at the stars,
star shapes shattered crunchy perfect,
cracked neat from all our glass.

In parks and doorways and stairwells and bars waits
puddled the happy splash of amber and
islands of interstellar glass shuddered like a sky-lake.

They want us for the beer and the earth stars
that we can make with our machines
we shouted at the planets and the spaces in between.

Soon, we breathed glee through glittering
wet wheat glory as they came-
wrapping a slimy arm around each of our waists
and stole us away
for the same old story.












However Big You Think You Are

You made a fool of everyone with those eyes,
the only ones on the bus that are not full stops.
Burst raspberry mouth spits don’t-give-a-shit
prickly quips and sighs,
but questions have always pinched at the spicy edge of you.
It is scary, I know, to stand on the rocks
and every time your socks dry though
its like the tide just slides back over them,
again and again.

And I remember how you can wear the night
of the wood chip, scrub land parks of this town
draped over you like heady cloak.
How the darkness rubs out the boredom
that stings and soaks your brain,
how it whispers strange new things.
How girls with eyes like yours are fighting prizes,
accidental princesses for kappa wearing kings.

How pocket money scrapes for manufactured cigarettes,
how awkwardly suckling them makes you forget.
So let curling smoke smudge the cloying greys
lick a blurring edge along these small days.

But don’t sell out the stars in your belly.
I can tell he is making your toes tingle
and I will not say that he is not important today.
Spooning school days away
in the dry mingled heat of each other,
squashed in sheets that his mum washed.

But in your mouth, I ask, you know that flavour
when it’s your song on the radio and it’s like
this flat-disc of earth tilts in your favour?
And in the blood rush of this remembering
your bubble-words blossom and ping from the walls,
dancing the drama of that song, and this moment
and how it is yours.
I will not tell you this is wrong.

But however big you think you are,
before your Technicolor smutch
is whisked away by the wind
like so much powder paint-
Heart beating, fizzy-fizzy, breath baiting
curl your toes over the edge of this town
and look down, it is waiting.








The Gas Man Cometh

It’s a gas leak sleepy head.
That fever, fever red face fuzz
Holy carbon monoxide, don’t shut your eyes.
We need to let the gas man in
and look at the size of his belly.

The walls are mincing themselves like liver.
Stuck in this nest and they’ve been at my solar plexus
with the ice cream scoop again.
The gas man will be back in an hour
to take another reading.

Gas Man, Gas Man
Is there going to be a quiz?
It was six point five, then two point nine
then one point something, then zero.
Are you going to go and ring your supervisor Gas Man?

He should check too, I’m glad you are here, gas man.
Tell me again, how many months
since you last had a cigarette?
The sad twang of your cold sweat in my nostrils
so I know you’re still here.

Though my eyes won’t open themselves
for fear that your high-viz will blind me.

They are fluorescent gods,
we took them cups of tea at midnight.
They are not luminescent,
but they are excellent conductors of light.
The gas man says its going to snow tonight.

He can feel it in the pipes.

All poems are copyright of the originating author. Permission must be obtained before using or performing others' poems.